How did you get your start in poker?

Loni Harwood: I was about 16 years old when I saw my dad playing on PokerStars. He had a lot of success online. He even won a World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) tournament. I really wanted to learn so I would sit next to him and watch him play.

The way I started was playing satellites. I started grinding $11 re-buys, eventually moving up to $215 buy-ins. I started making a couple hundred a week and just kept going.

I played more live poker when I started college and really focused on playing live cash-games more towards the end of my college career. I started at the $1/$2 limits and was earning probably above average so I then jumped to $2/$5.

LH:It was tough. Toward the end, I was doing so well in live cash-games that I didn’t want to finish college at all. I knew right away that I just wanted to play poker and nothing else but my parents pretty much told me that they wouldn’t support me unless I completed my degree. So I really had to push through mentally to get through school.

Finally, the time came and I graduated in January of 2012 with a business degree in finance from University of Albany-SUNY in New York. I couldn’t wait to start my life in poker though. Two weeks later I moved from New York to Florida to pursue my dream. The following month, I played my first series in the circuit and happened to win. It was my first WSOP Circuit ring. It was an incredible feeling. I knew that playing poker was what I wanted.

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